Spanish local elections, 2011

Spanish local elections, 2011

22 May 2011
68,230 seats in 8,116 local councils 1,040 seats in 38 provincial deputations 153 seats in 3 Juntas Generales in the Basque Country 157 seats in 7 cabildos in the Canary Islands
Registered	34,713,813 1.3%
Turnout	22,968,281 (66.2%) 2.2 pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader Mariano Rajoy José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero Artur Mas Party PP PSOE CiU Leader since 2 September 2003 22 July 2000 7 January 2002 Last election 23,348 seats, 35.6% 24,029 seats, 34.9% 3,387 seats, 3.3% Seats won 26,507 21,766 3,867 Seat change 3,159 2,263 480 Popular vote 8,476,138 6,275,314 779,188 Percentage 37.5% 27.8% 3.5% Swing 1.9 pp 7.1 pp 0.2 pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Cayo Lara Joan Puigcercós Pello Urizar Party IU ERC Bildu Leader since 14 December 2008 7 June 2008 3 April 2011 Last election 2,034 seats, 5.5% 1,591 seats, 1.6% 778 seats, 1.1% Seats won 2,249 1,392 1,139 Seat change 215 199 361 Popular vote 1,437,061 271,503 313,238 Percentage 6.4% 1.2% 1.4% Swing 0.9 pp 0.9 pp 0.3 pp

The 2011 Spanish local elections were held on Sunday, 22 May in Spain, throughout all 8,116 Spain municipalities, simultaneously with regional elections in 13 of the 17 autonomous communities—all except for Andalusia, the Basque Country, Catalonia, and Galicia. All 68,230 councillors were up for election, as well as 153 seats of the 3 Basque Juntas Generales, 157 seats of the 7 Canarian cabildos, 60 seats of the 4 Balearic consells and the indirectly-elected 1,040 seats of the 38 provincial deputations.

The days before the elections were marked by the 2011 Spanish protests which had been held in different cities across Spain since 15 May. The elections resulted in a landslide victory for the opposition People's Party (PP) and other centre-right parties, which won control of all of Spain's largest cities. In Barcelona, held by PSOE-sister party, the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC), since the first local elections in 1979, was won for the first time by the nationalist Convergence and Union (CiU), which also won in Girona. The PSOE only won only in 5 out of Spain's 50 provincial capitals. In the popular vote, it scored its worst result in nationwide-held local elections, with a mere 27.8%, 10 points behind the PP, which obtained 37.5%.

Following the election, the PSOE named Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba as prime ministerial candidate for the next general election, initially scheduled for March 2012, and finally held in November 2011.^[1]

Electoral system

Local councils

The number of seats in each city council is determined by the population count. According to the municipal electoral law, the population-seat relationship on each municipality is to be established on the following scale:

Additionally, for populations greater than 100,000, 1 seat is to be added per each 100,000 inhabitants or fraction, according to the most updated census data, and adding 1 more seat if the resulting seat count gives an even number.

All city council members are elected in single multi-member districts, consisting of the municipality's territory, using the D'Hondt method and a closed-list proportional representation system. Voting is on the basis of universal suffrage in a secret ballot. Only lists polling above 5% of valid votes in all of the municipality (which include blank ballots—for none of the above) are entitled to enter the seat distribution.

The Spanish municipal electoral law establishes a clause stating that, if no candidate is to gather an absolute majority of votes to be elected as mayor of a municipality, the candidate of the most-voted party will be automatically elected to the post.^[2]

Provincial deputations

The provincial deputations were elected indirectly by a council which in turn was elected from the judicial districts. The apportionment of deputies per province depends on population and was given as follows:

Results

Overall

Summary of the 22 May 2011 municipal election results

Party		Vote			Councillors
		Votes	%	±pp	Won	+/−
	People's Party (PP)	8,476,138	37.54	1.92	26,507	3,159
	Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE)	6,275,314	27.79	7.13	21,766	2,263
	United Left (IU)	1,437,061	6.36	0.88	2,249	215
	Convergence and Union (CiU)	779,188	3.45	0.20	3,867	480
	Union, Progress and Democracy (UPyD)	464,824	2.06	New	152	152
	Basque Nationalist Party (EAJ-PNV)	327,184	1.45	0.06	882	161
	Gather-Basque Solidarity (Bildu-EA)	313,238	1.39	0.64	1,139	452
	Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC)	271,503	1.20	0.36	1,392	199
	Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG)	261,466	1.16	0.26	589	72
	Initiative for Catalonia Greens (ICV)	242,021	1.07	0.09	400	51
	Andalusian Party (PA)	230,492	1.02	0.04	469	56
	Canarian Coalition (CC-PNC-CCN)	202,720	0.90	0.08	392	12
	Compromise Coalition (Compromís)	180,832	0.80	0.32	344	67
	Asturian Forum (FAC)	121,713	0.54	New	158	158
	Navarrese People's Union (UPN)	88,156	0.39	New	323	323
	Aragonese Party (PAR)	77,593	0.34	0.08	991	8
	Regionalist Party of Cantabria (PRC)	70,634	0.31	0.02	319	16
	Platform for Catalonia (PxC)	66,007	0.29	0.23	67	50
	Popular Unity Candidates (CUP)	62,409	0.28	0.20	101	81
	Aragonese Union (CHA)	53,149	0.24	0.02	185	43
	New Canaries (NCa)	51,220	0.23	0.01	53	1
	Yes to Navarre 2011 (Na-Bai 2011)	36,262	0.16	0.08	70	63
	Aralar (Aralar)	32,660	0.14	0.11	42	9
	Catalan Solidarity for Independence (SI)	31,793	0.14	New	47	47
	Liberal Democratic Centre (CDL)	27,220	0.12	0.06	52	13
	Others	1,813,743	8.03		5,674	166
	Blank ballots	584,469	2.59	0.67
Total		22,581,120	100.00		68,230	2,099
Valid votes		22,581,120	98.31	0.52
Invalid votes		387,161	1.69	0.52
Votes cast / turnout		22,968,281	66.16	2.19
Abstentions		11,745,532	33.84	2.19
Registered voters		34,713,813
Source: Ministry of the Interior

Municipal governments

Shift of control

The following table shows Spanish municipalities over 50,000 inhabitants as well as provincial capitals; the latter of which are marked in bold. Note that the party shown is not necessarily the one that won the election in each council, but rather, the one whose candidate was elected to the mayoralty.

Summary

Shift of city council control (provincial capitals and >50,000 inhab.)

Party		Shift		Total	+/−	% of population
		Gains	Losses
	People's Party (PP)	36	8	88	28	65.64
	Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE)	7	41	37	34	17.39
	Convergence and Union (CiU)	6	±0	7	6	8.77
	Canarian Coalition (CC)	±0	±0	3	±0	1.84
	Basque Nationalist Party (EAJ-PNV)	±0	±0	2	±0	1.75
	Asturias Forum (FAC)	2	±0	2	2	1.33
	Navarrese People's Union (UPN)	±0	±0	1	±0	0.80
	Basque Country Unite (EHB)	1	±0	1	1	0.75
	United Left (IU)	±0	1	2	1	0.58
	The Greens (LV)	1	±0	1	1	0.35
	Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG)	±0	±0	1	±0	0.33
	New Canaries (NC)	±0	1	1	1	0.26
	Andalusian Party (PA)	±0	±0	1	±0	0.21
Total				147	±0

Footnotes

External links

• (in Spanish) El Pais election results website